On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Art De Vany wrote:
> It is sometimes helpful to look at counterfactuals when seeking a
> deeper understanding. This strikes me as a useful way to try to
> understand what features of the human adaptation evolved during the
> Paleolithic. How much of our humanity, intelligence and failings
> emerged during this period? Who knows?
>
> But, think of it this way. Ask the question: But for the
> Paleolithic, humans would be ... and fill in the blanks.
We must be very careful when doing this as the Palaeolithic is a long
period of time (at least 2.5 million years).
> The essential features strike me as the abundant big game, the
> cold, the seasonality, and the big-game hunting adaptation. So,
> here is the proposition (others on the list will have their own
> counterfactuals to supply I hope)
This is an a high latitude Palaeolithic scenario, which applies to the
last 5-700,000 years of human occupation in Europe, northern Asia and
northern North America, it is not necessarily true of the rest of the
world. If we are interested here in anatomically modern humans then we
must consider this to apply only to the last 40,000 years of human
occupation in those high latitude regions.
> Proposition: Paleolithic big-game hunting required courage,
> strength, and endurance. It also required wit and a deep
> understanding of the animals, their migratory patterns, the seasons
> of the earth, and its topography.
>
> These are the requirements of the Paleolithic human lifeway and
> they shaped every aspect of modern human physiology and function.
>
> Had it not been for this critical period and its unique
> environment, human beings of our form would not have evolved.
Not entirely true. Most modern humans have a body shape which is not
adapted for the cold of the last glacial in Europe - our body shape is
essentially that required for an African climate. (Although some peoples
have a body shape better adapted to cold than others [e.g. Eskimo].)
> But for the Paleolithic adaptation, humans would be smaller, have larger
> stomachs, and smaller brains. They would be less intelligent. They
> would have less preference for meat as a food. They would not have such
> a strong liking for fat. And they would be less capable of storing fat
> on their bodies. They would be less cooperative and far less capable of
> thinking ahead.
Much of the increase in brain size relative to other apes (measured by
encephalisation quotient) had occurred prior to the Palaeolithic when
stone tool use began. Gut length was also decreasing to keep the body in
energy balance, according to the expensive tissue hypothesis. As the
other deductions here follow on from this we may deduce that they had also
started to occur to a greater or lesser extent prior to the appearance of
the genus homo.
> They probably would not bury their dead. And they would be nearly
> devoid of spiritual beliefs.
These traits do not appear until the Upper Palaeolithic. We have hardly
any evidence for burial of the dead (which is construed as religious
belief) until well into the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe. There are only
2 or 3 definite burials of Neanderthals and these have no sign of ritual
practices. The earliest grave goods and art are associated with Upper
Palaeolithic humans, whose ancestors appear to have had the same
anatomical form for many tens of millenia before this time. The
appearance of ritual is thus not linked to brain size or anatomical form
and is something of a mystery. It is however linked to changes in tool
manufacture and the introduction of bone tools alongside stone tools,
which suggests some sort of mental change which cannot be observed
anatomically.
The scenario described by Art as influencing human evolution is in fact
one which modern humans adapted to when they entered Europe c.45-35,000
years ago, and after which point we can detect very little change to their
anatomy, although technology is changing. This "Palaeolithic human
lifeway" is thus *not* what moulded our evolution, but something which we
adapted to in certain parts of the world.
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